NOM

Some highlights from the latest FAIR newsletter:

Currently the FairMormon Website gets about a quarter million visitors each month. That is 3 million visitors each year or 62,500 visitors each week.

Not bad. A lot of people looking for answers.

I know there are documents out there that list over 100 criticism of the Church. In contrast, we provide more than 7000 pages of responses, and 1700 videos. If you want to believe what the critics have to say, that is your choice. But, you can't claim you have explored the issue unless you have checked out what FairMormon has to offer.

Gosh, 70 pages of answers per criticism. I guess FAIR wins!

If you are concerned whether we are an unreliable or rogue organization, you might try this fun activity. Go to the official Church Website at https://www.lds.org/ and type “FairMormon” into the Search box. We are a trusted source for information.

See, they're legit. The church uses them when it works for them and can deny them when it doesn't. I guess that's why the church is secretly funding FAIR.

So, how can you help?
You can help us in two ways:

1. If you believe that FairMormon has helped you or your family with your testimony or in answering a question, please write us and tell us about it. You can write to us by going to this page https://www.fairmormon.org/contact and use the "Submit a Question to FairMormon Volunteers" form.

I wonder how many of the tesimonials they will include from people who have lost their testimonies because of FAIR. Too bad there's no way to track how many of those 3 million/year visits are having the opposite effect of what was intended.

2. Support us through your donations...
If you want to make a one-time fixed donation of $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, $500, $1000, or $5000...

There's also an address if you want to give more, so open those wallets, folks.

I was tempted to write a 'testimonial' about how much damage FAIR did to my testimony, but I'm sure it would just end up in the shaken faith syndrome bin. Maybe I will anyway. Maybe we should start a campaign. On second thought, I recall hearing claims of people with questions being outed to the SCMC by FAIR.

I must admit a deep sense of gratitude for the information found on FAIR.

Back in 2013 when my awakening began I had no idea of the problematic issues with the church. (I know, I know, it's all my fault for not doing enough study and personal research into the historicity of the whole thing)

Only after looking on the FAIR site to find the solution to the satanic lies which had seduced one of my children, did I become aware of the rabbit hole which I quickly scampered down. As most of us here discovered, the many anti-mormon lies we had been avoiding all our lives suddenly became something to consider. The church had "answers" for all these lies.
The only problem was the answers made me worry more then the questions.

So I would just like to say how happy my foray into the world of FAIR has made me. It has given me eyes that can see and courage to, like Peter, step out of the boat and find the water will support my weight.

Is this the kind of testimonial they are looking for?

Hagoth wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2017 10:46 pm

If you are concerned whether we are an unreliable or rogue organization, you might try this fun activity. Go to the official Church Website at https://www.lds.org/ and type “FairMormon” into the Search box. We are a trusted source for information.

See, they're legit. The church uses them when it works for them and can deny them when it doesn't. I guess that's why the church is secretly funding FAIR.

They claim they are a trusted source but yet they have the following legal disclaimer on their web site and are being secretly funded

Any opinions expressed, implied, or included in or with the goods and services offered by FairMormon are solely those of FairMormon and not those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Implying they do not speak for the church and their opinions are not necessarily supported by the church. It is all about plausible deniability, they are to be trusted unless they say something that isn't to be trusted.

I've noticed no speaks with authority for the church on these issues.

Even books written by prophets or apostles have similar disclaimers, i.e. these are just their opinions and they do not speak for the church, plausible deniability. I expected one day general conference, even the lesson manuals, and maybe sacrament meeting will have legal disclaimers that the views expressed therein are opinions and do not necessarily reflect the position of the church. It is the same reason that the GAs don't want their talks recorded, it can come back to bite them, plausible deniability that they never said that.

I can credit FAIR for leading me out of the church. I went to FAIR with questions and doubts and all I got was spin and an exhaustive laundry list of what all the other issues were.

No... Joseph Smith didn't marry a 14 year old, that is a anti-mormon lie, let's see what FAIR has to say, what..... I guess he did, but that is OK because (spin), Oh look another FAIR article says Joseph Smith married other mans wives, but I was taught by the church that was a anti-mormon lie, but that is OK because (spin). Oh wait the Book of Abraham has translation issues, what!! What are the kinderhook plates? (Spin) Oh my gosh there are 1000's of issues here that I was taught by the church were anti-mormon lies, but in fact are factually correct, but it doesn't matter because of (spin .. spin .. spin), and down ... down ... the rabbit hole I went.

I thank you FAIR from the bottom of my heart for presenting comprehensive information that showed me the truth.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2017 10:46 pm

I know there are documents out there that list over 100 criticism of the Church. In contrast, we provide more than 7000 pages of responses, and 1700 videos. If you want to believe what the critics have to say, that is your choice. But, you can't claim you have explored the issue unless you have checked out what FairMormon has to offer.

Gosh, 70 pages of answers per criticism. I guess FAIR wins!

Also, none of you slacker apostates can legitimately claim to understand the issues unless you read every single article on FAIR. You are obligated to keep all the commandments and all of your covenants until you have read all of this. And after all that, you still are obligated to spend a lot of time seeing all the issues from a faithful point of view. Plus, you are not allowed to disrupt Sunday School with you new found knowledge. Let your faithful ward members persist in the LDS triumphalism of McConkie's "Mormon Doctrine".

Anyone of virtually any education level is welcome to join the LDS church through baptism. Eight year olds for sure are OK. But leaving the church requires years of scholarly study in LDS history, biblical contextualism, Mesoamerican archaeology, and Egyptology. In other words, the burden of proof is always on the apostate. Unbelievers must attempt to disprove the LDS church in all things before they can be even slightly justified in sleeping late on Sunday or trying green tea.

7000 pages of responses, and 1700 videos

All of that, not from the prophets and apostles of the LDS church but from a bunch of third party apologetic guys! How does a big number of responses and videos equate to the right answers? It's like Mike Ashe's books that are just a bunch of words and metaphors that don't go anywhere. It's designed to dupe and snow the reader into thinking it's legit and provides answers when it doesn't. Statements like that from FAIR just sound like a huge struggle to justify things; the whole process just wreaks of bogusness as I ponderize it.

Corsair wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 8:11 am

Hagoth wrote: ↑Tue Nov 07, 2017 10:46 pm

I know there are documents out there that list over 100 criticism of the Church. In contrast, we provide more than 7000 pages of responses, and 1700 videos. If you want to believe what the critics have to say, that is your choice. But, you can't claim you have explored the issue unless you have checked out what FairMormon has to offer.

Gosh, 70 pages of answers per criticism. I guess FAIR wins!

Also, none of you slacker apostates can legitimately claim to understand the issues unless you read every single article on FAIR. You are obligated to keep all the commandments and all of your covenants until you have read all of this. And after all that, you still are obligated to spend a lot of time seeing all the issues from a faithful point of view. Plus, you are not allowed to disrupt Sunday School with you new found knowledge. Let your faithful ward members persist in the LDS triumphalism of McConkie's "Mormon Doctrine".

Anyone of virtually any education level is welcome to join the LDS church through baptism. Eight year olds for sure are OK. But leaving the church requires years of scholarly study in LDS history, biblical contextualism, Mesoamerican archaeology, and Egyptology. In other words, the burden of proof is always on the apostate. Unbelievers must attempt to disprove the LDS church in all things before they can be even slightly justified in sleeping late on Sunday or trying green tea.

Add this to the fact that the FAIR website seems intentionally difficult to navigate with 1000's of links, separate pages, inefficient presentation of information, and hidden Easter eggs.

When I look at the list of evidences stuff on FAIR, the majority of the "evidences" that are proposed start with:

"There is no way Joseph Smith could have known...."

Do we really know what kind of information he was or was not exposed to? Was he a prophet? Did he have a lot of dumb luck? How much was parroted from other people who had theories/knowledge of their own?

The site irritates me because it muddies the water for me. I have seen them propose different answers at different times depending on what new sources may become available. I think part of what irritates is that for apologetics to work you must first accept that JS was a complete backbirth.

The Question "Why did JS write that the BoA was written by Abraham in his own hand, if we now know the papyri doesn't say what he said it did?" and the answer always starts with "Remember JS was an uneducated farm boy, so how could he have known that Abraham was almost sacrificed in Egypt? Or that the Egyptians had a god El that alliterates with Elkanah?"

So he didn't realize that what was happening wasn't translation? Did God not see fit to tell him it wasn't a translation? Why did he claim he could speak other languages? Am I now to assume that in addition to being uneducated, unintelligent and aloof that he was also an attention whore, and that he had to be like that in order to be the prophet of the restoration?

So confusing...

Keep up the good work FAIR! For every person you keep in, there's another you push out. Keep on trying to convince the world that God wanted a married man in his 30s sleeping with teens, married women, housemaids, orphans and foster daughters behind his wife's back and all kinds of garbage like that. As a pro-LDS source confirming that anti-Mormon lies weren't really ever lies, you guys can't be beat!

I love you FAIR and all of your half-baked spin-infested morally upside-down rationalizations of all kind of batcrap crazy Church stuff. When I want confirmation that I have made the right choice regarding the Church, I just have to visit your website and after a few minutes in Crazytown wandering around through your pretzel twist logic and desperate ad hoc explanations, it becomes obvious I made the right choice, and that the Church can't possibly be what it claims to be. It is so life affirming. You guys rock! Hope you never go away!

slavereeno wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 8:43 am The Question "Why did JS write that the BoA was written by Abraham in his own hand, if we now know the papyri doesn't say what he said it did?" and the answer always starts with "Remember JS was an uneducated farm boy, so how could he have known that Abraham was almost sacrificed in Egypt?

For further proof they could add, "He was so limited that he actually kept a rock in his hat!"

If an organization needs all those pages and videos to defend itself, that alone tells me they have something to spin or hide.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 11:14 am... a married man in his 30s ...

Shouldn't we start using the Corporation's wording and refer to Joseph as a "A few years before his 40th birthday" ?

Just for fun I took a quick glance through the questions and answers. It is a treasure trove of great questions and reveals much of the truth about church history and the issues. The FAIR site alone would have been enough to convince me it's all BS.

It is clear from the available documentary evidence that the Prophet did not feel constrained by the arbitrary rule of his modern critics that he must include every aspect of his First Vision story in every single retelling of it, and no reasonable person should be bothered that he doesn't.

Wow! Really!? I mean, this dark powerful being binds your tongue and nearly destroys you and you feel it's so trivial of a detail that you don't need to mention anything about it when you tell the tale the first couple of instances? That's like LOTR without the Dark Lord Sauron! No reasonable person my a$$!

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 2:04 pm Just for fun I took a quick glance through the questions and answers. It is a treasure trove of great questions and reveals much of the truth about church history and the issues. The FAIR site alone would have been enough to convince me it's all BS.

It is clear from the available documentary evidence that the Prophet did not feel constrained by the arbitrary rule of his modern critics that he must include every aspect of his First Vision story in every single retelling of it, and no reasonable person should be bothered that he doesn't.

Wow! Really!? I mean, this dark powerful being binds your tongue and nearly destroys you and you feel it's so trivial of a detail that you don't need to mention anything about it when you tell the tale the first couple of instances? That's like LOTR without the Dark Lord Sauron! No reasonable person my a$$!

Let's break the Fair quote down a little.

First off, it's impossible for Joseph to have been influenced in ANY way by his "modern" critics. They/we weren't alive when he was right? So Joseph's reasons for telling the story differently each time have nothing to do with our day and time. So the first sentence is obviously an attempt to slap down anyone who dares to critique the differing versions and why they are the way they are. And I would really like to see this "available documentary evidence" that shows so clearly that the prophet didn't feel he needed to include every aspect of the first vision in every re-telling of it.

Did Joseph leave a letter or note stating, "Here's why I'm telling this story differently every time."? Where is this EVIDENCE that is so compelling and clear?

And then comes the big smack down of all you stupid people out there who dare to criticize our prophet.... "No reasonable person should be bothered that he (Joseph) doesn't (tell the story the same)."

Well, I have a quote from an individual who some might think to be a "reasonable" person. Maybe we should hear what he has to say regarding the clarity with which the first vision was given:

S. Dilworth Young

"I am concerned however with one item which has recently been called to my attention on this matter. There appears to be going about our communities some writing to the effect that the Prophet Joseph Smith EVOLVED HIS DOCTRINE from what might have been a vision, in which he is supposed to have said that he saw an angel, instead of the Father and Son. According to this theory, by the time he was inspired to write the occurrence in 1838, he had come to the conclusion that there were two Beings."

"This rather shocked me. I can see no reason why the Prophet, with his brilliant mind, would have FAILED TO REMEMBER IN SHARP RELIEF THE DETAILS of that eventful day. I can remember quite vividly that in 1915 I had a mere dream, and while the dream was prophetic in its nature, it was not startling. It has been long since fulfilled, but I can remember every detail of it as sharply and clearly as though it had happened yesterday. How then could any man conceive that the Prophet, receiving such a vision as he received, would not remember it and would fail to write it clearly, distinctly, and accurately?"

Well.......there you have it. How could ANY person at Fairmormon even conceive that Joseph wouldn't write the vision "clearly, distinctly, and accurately" from the get-go?

Joseph with his "brilliant mind" can't recall the details of seeing GOD? I'm with Bro. Young on this one.....

Palerider...I love the rebuttal. Well done.

1smartdodog wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 1:31 pm If an organization needs all those pages and videos to defend itself, that alone tells me they have something to spin or hide.

That was my response exactly. Good answers should be simple and concise. Example: Joseph's translation of the facsimiles does not match the literal meanings of the characters and figures because he pulled it out of his ass.

If they have good answers they should be able to answer each of those 100 questions with a single paragraph. At most they could answer ALL of them in a document of, how long is the CES letter, 90 pages? Instead they have spilled an average of the entire CES letter worth of ink for each question/criticism.

It is astounding that they are bragging about how inefficient they are at fulfilling their mission. Think about it, their ultimate tactic for answering questions is to say, "here's a mountain of excuses, now it's your job to slog through all of it and see if any of it works for you."

Dear FAIR,

I came to your website looking for a simple answer to a simple question. Instead I found a long and convoluted explanation that did not answer my question but introduced me to many more problems than I had any idea even existed. Even though the faith crisis that you introduced to me was very painful, I would like to thank you for making this a less long and drawn-out experience than it would have been without your help. Keep up the good work!

Your biggest fan,
Haggoth

You know, it might be fun working for FAIR if could use facts instead of spinning them. Imagine if the church would actually disavow some of the silly positions they hold instead of trying to double down on things like: "the BOA must be authentic" or ""the BOM must be historically accurate."
For example what if they could say something like: "Even though the description of King Benjamin's sermon resembles a 19th century camp meeting, the content of the speech contains excellent advice on service and loving one'S neighbor."

Palerider wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 3:15 pm Joseph with his "brilliant mind" can't recall the details of seeing GOD? I'm with Bro. Young on this one.....

High five and a fist bump for that one!

It's pretty clear to me that FAIR is designed to help the faithful nod their heads and stay faithful; they will grab on to any shred or what has the appearance of evidence to support the narrative rather than the historical facts. Any critical thinker should easily see through the rhetorical BS of those answers...er, I mean attempted justifications and explanations.

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2017 6:43 am. Any critical thinker should easily see through the rhetorical BS of those answers...er, I mean attempted justifications and explanations.

...er, excuses.

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 8:39 am All of that, not from the prophets and apostles of the LDS church but from a bunch of third party apologetic guys! How does a big number of responses and videos equate to the right answers?

In the same way the growth of the church means it's true. That is to say, it means jack all.

Not Buying It wrote: ↑Wed Nov 08, 2017 11:14 am Keep up the good work FAIR! For every person you keep in, there's another you push out. Keep on trying to convince the world that God wanted a married man in his 30s sleeping with teens, married women, housemaids, orphans and foster daughters behind his wife's back and all kinds of garbage like that. As a pro-LDS source confirming that anti-Mormon lies weren't really ever lies, you guys can't be beat!

I love you FAIR and all of your half-baked spin-infested morally upside-down rationalizations of all kind of batcrap crazy Church stuff. When I want confirmation that I have made the right choice regarding the Church, I just have to visit your website and after a few minutes in Crazytown wandering around through your pretzel twist logic and desperate ad hoc explanations, it becomes obvious I made the right choice, and that the Church can't possibly be what it claims to be. It is so life affirming. You guys rock! Hope you never go away!

Preach it bruthah! FAIR was the beginning of my end in oh so many ways. Fair's verbosity and the church's essays read like legal briefs for a party who has no business being in court in the first place.